Smart and sexy they may well be, but mobile phones can’t defy the laws of physics. If you’re too far away from a mast, if there’s a mountain or two in the way, or if you’re sitting on the beach hemmed in by cliffs, finding a sufficiently strong signal to make a call is often a mission impossible.

It was that commonplace frustration that led inventor James Tagg to co-found Truphone, an ambitious British-based company that has today announced the launch of a mobile network covering 66 countries. Living on a farm in the South of England, Tagg developed a Voice over IP (VoIP) app that would allow him to use his handset, despite the very poor signal coverage in his area. Truphone was established in 2006 to develop and sell the product. Since then, the company has changed focus and evolved into global telecoms business employing around 750 staff.

Today the company’s flagship service is built around a SIM card that enables customers to use their mobile bundles – calls, texts, and data – across national boundaries without incurring roaming charges. The Truphone SIM also allows users to take advantage of ‘local’ numbers on their phones through a ‘multiple identities’ system. For instance, a British businessman visiting the States could assign a US number to his phone, effectively creating a localised identity.

Until today sales of the Truphone SIM have been limited to eight countries, so creation of a network providing mobile coverage in more than 60 jurisdictions (across China, Russia, Singapore, Mexico, Brazil, the US and Europe) marks a considerable step-change in terms of scale. And if Truphone has its way this will also be a genuinely disruptive offering, changing the way that its target customers access mobile services. So how does it work and perhaps more importantly how does a relative newcomer challenge the practices of the world’s major mobile telcos?

The Quest For A Seamless Service

Truphone CEO Steve Robertson says the company’s global ambitions have been driven by customer demand for genuinely international phone services among, primarily, business users “The drivers are the growth in mobility and continued globalisation - business has become international,” he says. “At the same time phone users want to be able to use their handsets and tablets in the same way that they do when they are at home.”

Most of us would probably like to make calls, send texts and use the internet as freely abroad as we do at home is but Robertson claims this desire is tempered by uncertainty and fear over high charges. “When you ask people, you find that they use their handsets differently when they’re abroad,” he says. “They turn off their phones or turn off the data.”

And even when phone users are happy to pay for international roaming, there are technical difficulties – for instance, calls being rooted back to the home country, causing time delays.

A Virtual Network

Truphone has set out to remove these frustrations by creating a virtual network, in partnership with physical infrastructure providers, that offersa the same level of service everywhere and as part of a single cost structure.

Robertson acknowledges the ambition of the project has generated some major challenges. Establishing partnerships has clearly been key, but more fundamentally, sustainable success and word of mouth sales are hugely dependent on the quality of the network. “We’re doing something disruptive and something that hasn’t been done before,” says Robertson. “So one of the key challenges for us lay in ensuring absolutely that the technology works.”

Equally important with that kind of scale the company has to establish a global brand presence. To date the company is aiming primarily at business users, although there is a consumer product. Robertson says the key to building on that is the quality of the service. “Our aim is to do what we do really well and build customer advocacy."

The company won’t reveal customer figures at the moment but it does point to the growth of staffing levels – from 250 to 750 in two years - plus a doubling of sales in Q4 2013, with that period's sales figures matched in January and February 2014 and again in March. quarters, as evidence of progress It can also boast a number of major financial institutions and Harley Davidson amongst its clients. Truphone has also carried out research among 2,500 users, indicating that roaming and voice usage has, on average, almost doubled since they joined the service. The company has to date raised $200m in funding.

Riding the Zeitgeist

Backed by Robertson argues that Truphone is both disrupting the market but also riding the zeitgeist in terms of both customer demand for international service and legislative pressure, such as upcoming EU regulations to reduce roaming costs.

But could that ‘zeitgeist’ also represent a threat to Truphone’s future. For instance, if and when roaming costs come down where does that leave Truphone in terms of its market niche. “Our strength is that we’re not driven by regulation,” says Robertson. “For one thing we are offering a global service – not just something that applies to the EU. And we are responding directly to what customers want.”

Arguably the company has adopted the classic “what would Richard Branson Do?” approach to challenging in a mature market: i.e. identifying consumer frustrations and developing products to solve those frustrations, first through VoIP and then through its SIM. “And as we continue to innovate with our services I think we can stay ahead of the curve,” says Robertson.